Apple just finished announcing its first products of 2022. You can watch the video (an hour) at Apple dot com.

The highlight of this for me is the new Mac Studio. It is an all new computer they have never offered before. It has the M1 Max SOC in it, but you can also order it with their latest Apple Silicon, the M1 ULTRA. The ultra contains an integrated fusion of TWO M1 Max chips.

Suffice it to say, this new machine is many times faster than the fastest iMac Pro in their previous line-up. It is faster than most of the lower end Mac Pro configurations.

A new 27" 5K display with all sorts of audio and video features, ports, and its own processor is also offered for use with the Mac Studio and all their other computers.

If you have been waiting for Apple's " new 27" iMac," this is probably the replacement for the old Intel model. They said at the end of the presentation that they have "just one more replacement to go — the Mac Pro."

Shipping March 18, the M1 Max Mac Studio starts at about $2000. The M1 ULTRA Mac Studio starts at about $4000. The 27" Studio Display is $1600. Of course, everything has options...

The reviewers on YouTube and at the old fashioned review sites are going to have plenty to say about these soon. Comparisons with all sorts of Intel and AMD hardware will be interesting. Apple said some pretty boastful things in the presentation.

I have a show coming up in April at the Spark Photo Festival in Peterborough Ontario Canada and due to some massive house repairs I can't afford to properly frame my prints. Being a digital specialist I figured to do it all digitally and use a peel and stick substrate. I have 2 choices and ask your opinion on which one strikes you as more presentable. Of course the double mat would save me a pile of black ink considering that the entire show is in B/W but the triple just seems to pop. I have 34 prints to do and many are panoramas so that black ink just may become an issue. But certainly not as much as framing would be. Thanks for your help.

"Excess deaths" is a public health concept going back many decades. It is simply the number of deaths from all causes over the number of deaths from all causes from a previous comparable period. In the absence of any other circumstance that kills numbers of people, the "excess deaths" are assumed to be from Covid. I believe Covid deaths have been undercounted, since people who die at home from Covid are frequently not examined by a coroner. People who die in hospital from the complications of Covid have prevailed upon medical providers not to list the death as Covid, esp when the deceased was not vaccinated.

Actually, they do NOT call themselves Indians. Indian is a title besowed on them by white men early in the settlement of North America by Europeans. Indians (Native Americans if you wish) called themselves as members of specific tribes (families). They didn't particulary worry about such things. If you were a member of their tribe, you may or may not be okay. If you were a member of a tribe that was friendly with them you either got a pass or were treated as a friend. If you were a member of a competing or non-friendly tribe, you were enslaved or killed. Yes, I am a member of the Chicasaw tribe and 1/4th Chicasaw (not Indian, they come from India... in south Asia). Oh and by the way, the only reason that this continent is called America is because of Americus Vespuci (another European) and not because the residents called it that. Oh, and we (the Indians) never called ourselves indians. That was a monicer applied by people stealing our lands (white Europeans). While you are at it, you might ask the govenment of the United States to please pay the Chickasaw the 40 to 60 million dollars that they were supposed to pay when they purchased Florida prior to our removal. Ummm what would that be now in current dollars and with accrued interes over the couple of hundred years of the United States ignoring their treaty?